A Letter to America

Dear America,

I love your "service with a smile". I love your twang... most of the time. I love your artists, your bluster, your swagger, your grand buildings with the names of philanthropists on the front. Your optimism, even when your economy sucks.

I love your absurd portion sizes, your ridiculous menu creations (donut french toast? whipped cream on everything?), your retro diners, your retro grocery packaging, the way you say "uh-huh" instead of "you're welcome". I love your opinionated self. I love your free refills, and the fact that you still have dollar bills, so that holding three of them feels like money and not change.

I (have grown to) love (even though it drives me CRAZY) the perverse dedicated way that ALL the gardeners in LA absolutely refuse to dead-head their roses, leaving overblown, blousy roses outside all the buildings, like aging starlets in faded summer dresses (scheming to hide the new blooms).

I love Broadway, and paying the U.S. price on things, even though there's the exchange rate to factor in. I love that I can justify this blog entry by pretending that it's an assignment for "The List as Post-Narrative Structure". I love that your sale prices are actually a bargain and not just marked-down mark-ups.

I know we don't agree on everything, and that I could make a list just as long with negative things, but I won't, 'cause that's not what love is about.

Beginnings!

Things I managed to do today (by "today" I mean since 12am):

Finished reading Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley. It was terrific and I should have read it years ago.

Started re-reading The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.

Had lunch with a friend-of-a-friend who is more-or-less where I was at for the last six months, and I was able to confidently say to her, "don't worry, you'll figure it out".

Remembered to put sunscreen on my shins and the tops of my feet, but did not remember to sunscreen my thighs. Wore a short-ish skirt. Have the dumbest looking tan EVER. Half my thighs are pasty white, half are tanned and my knees are slightly burned. Picture it - you could use a good laugh.

Got spaghetti sauce on my shirt. Naturally. (I can make spaghetti here because it's an "apartment-style" hotel with a kitchenette.)

Went to the two-hour orientation seminar for the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing program I have just started. It was terrific. Tomorrow the actual seminars and lectures and introductions to software (for the online portion) begin. I'm really excited. I have a ton of reading to do. I will also have a ton of writing to do, but that part is more intimidating than exciting, so I'm going to ignore it till the next ten days are over.

I dreamt of David Bowie again. I do occasionally dream of David Bowie and Madonna. In the last dream, David showed me his art collection* and then David and my cousin and I played a practical joke on my other cousin. It involved David wearing a fake rubber nose. It was hilarious. In the dream.

I wrote this blog entry. I thought of you and you and you and you.

* I have no idea what kind of art David Bowie actually collects.

RIP: Michael Crichton

I did not read Michael Crichton's books, but I'm still shocked and saddened that he's gone.

I'm surprised it took me two days to hear about it.

The one thing I remember about him is what my grade 11 biology teacher told me, which is that Michael Crichton (like my bio teacher) dropped out of med school to pursue writing (and one of his books is about his med-school experience).

According to his official biography on his webpage, this is totally false. He did graduate med school. In fact, his biography is full of over-accomplishment.

But his well-roundedness - in both the sciences and the art/craft of writing is inspiring.

El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de la Porciúncula

One of the more interesting opinions I've read about Los Angeles is here at BLDGBLOG, an architectural blog by Geoff Manaugh.

I don't disagree with him either. The irony is that you have a city that "doesn't care" what you do, populated by people in entertainment, who are all desperate to have you care.

325 days of sunshine a year can only stave off certain kinds of depression.